Sunday, May 8, 2011

Well if I hadn't decided to postpone taking the exams I would have been packing my bags this evening and heading out in the morning off on the all to familiar trip to the UK from Miami to sit the final exams. I sit here studying at the moment, slightly disappointed but altogether glad I made that call as I am not ready for the exams yet.
I have really got into the subjects now and am even banging out a few practice exams in 2 out of the 3 subjects but there is just no chance I would have been ready to sit down in a week and pass them.
Navigation is a massive subject, the variety in it is quite daunting. One example of that is that for the ATPL students (Airline Transport) its actually 2 different exams, similar to the first exam I did of Aircraft general knowledge.
The Principles of Flight subject is just one mass of boredom and even worse than Air Law. Any insomniacs out there drop me an email and I'll sent you a chapter and you'll snoozing in no time.

Tomorrow I will be starting the final subject of the trio and the one that actually has the longest exam out of all 9 and thats called Mass Balance Planning and Performance, which is a cheeky little 3 hours in the exam room.
I have just over 8 weeks until the exams and I have decided upon a 3 week vacation before the actual date to make sure I have the brush up time away from work. The other delight I will have on the next exam visit is my Class 1 aviation medical, no walk in the park and not much fun either, with a full day of tests, some physical and some mental and some others........
If I manage to pass these exams and my medical, I am hoping I will be able to enroll in the Commercial Pilot flight training aspect of the course at Ormond beach Florida which takes about 4 weeks of full-time flying to complete with once again a nice test at the end of it, you'd think I was getting used to tests by now but its still a daunting few months ahead of me.
I am really looking forward to the flying of the Commercial flying course as its all about sharpening the skills I have as a Private pilot already and then getting you ready for the world of getting paid for flying which is the fun part of it all. I think the course will give me a lot more confidence in my capabilities in the cockpit and will also get me flying bigger, heavier and more complex aircraft which is one thing I am really looking forward to on it.
If I get through that course and pass it will be onto the Instructors course........ but I will bore you with the details of that another day.

As part of my daily working life as a photographer I recently had to fly over to St Thomas in the caribbean where I was lucky enough to fly right seat in a Cessna 402 air taxi and there was some lovely views. These guys really do have a great job, hopping between the islands 7 or 8 per day, manually flying in the sunshine, dodging storms..... I have enclosed a couple of pictures to show their office in the sky......

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Global Express XRS

I am a Private jet pilot on a Global Express XRS based in the Middle East. Since I started flying and I went on the journey of learning to fly ever bigger and faster planes I wanted to log my thoughts and experiences along the way so that I can look back in the years to come. I try to update the blog as regularly as I can, usually when I fly or when something significant happens. I was taught once, if you don't have anything interesting to say don't say anything at all......
I am a keen photographer and I have recently learnt to shoot video and upload as many as I can to the blog.
I love to hear from people so please feel free to comment or drop me a message to my email bigglesstu@gmail.com